


Get Out of My Office, Lewis

by Zephrbabe



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: BAMF Sharon Carter (Marvel), Gen, Paperwork, SHIELD, SHIELD Agent Darcy Lewis, Steve Rogers gets in trouble a lot, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-12-13 22:22:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11769597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zephrbabe/pseuds/Zephrbabe
Summary: Various ficlets of Darcy Lewis annoying people in offices.





	1. Death By a Thousand Papercuts

Sharon Carter liked field work. She enjoyed traveling to new places, taking on different personas, and occasionally getting to shoot people.

She had been trained by the best, had honed her skills over years, and knew she was a lethal weapon in both mind and body. There was little she couldn’t achieve if she set her mind to it; she lived to excel.

But, paperwork, though.

It was her kryptonite – her digital nemesis – the only thing that detracted from how much she loved her job.

The only thing she hated more than doing paperwork for one of her ops was doing paperwork for one of her ops that involved an Avenger. They were the espionage equivalent of the nuclear option. Plus, it seemed like whenever they were called in, the result was some extra-weird shit that not only generated a ton of much-loathed paperwork, but also seemed to spawn new, hyper-specific forms that she, as op lead, _had to fill out_.

“Yo, Carter, I got you a present!” called the absolute last voice she wanted to hear. Sharon regretted leaving her office door open. She might otherwise have been able to keep silent and pretend she wasn’t there.

She sighed. “Let me guess, Lewis: more paperwork?”

Darcy grinned, “I know how much you love it.” The infernal inter-office liason dropped a three-inch stack of _paper_ files onto Sharon’s already cluttered desk. “Cap may have neglected to mention during debrief that he took out a critical structural support during the fight.”

Only Sharon’s self-control saved her from bashing her head on her desk; she settled for pinching the bridge of her nose.

“The building collapsed, didn’t it.” Oh _god_ , that was going to be so many extra forms.

“In a cinematic fashion as he was casually striding away from the billowing debris, according to a member of STRIKE.”

Sharon eyed Darcy, who shrugged.

“Sgt. Kabeya majored in film before joining the Navy SEALs. His reports read like screenplays of movies I’d actually want to see.”

Sharon avoided reading individual reports; there were analysts and computer programs for that. Not even an entertaining report would induce her to suffer through a longer paperwork process.

She doubted Lewis bothered to read most of them, either. The woman ignored all rules she thought were silly, including but not limited to: keeping a tidy workspace, addressing superior officers with respect, and not stealing a prototype Stark/SHIELD collaboration to engage in a high-speed chase with a “cute nefarious baddie.”

Glaring at the stack, Sharon said, “I’d thank you, but-”

“Yeah, yeah: I’ve just condemned you to death by a thousand cuts.” Darcy adjusted the lay of her standard-issue black suit jacket, and turned to leave. Sharon noted Lewis was wearing glittery Doc Martens instead of regulation black shoes.

Darcy stopped in Sharon’s doorway, pausing her retreat long enough to smirk over her shoulder, “I’ll be by later with some lemons for all those papercuts you’re gonna have.”

“Get the hell out of my office, Lewis.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Those paper files are blank; the real forms are in Carter's email. Darcy just likes messing with people.)


	2. Darcy Lewis is Good at Her Job But Bad at Time Travel

The Howling Commandos were huddled outside Colonel Phillips’ mud-spattered tent, droppin’ eaves like it was going out of style. Oh, they posed all nonchalant-like around the side, pretending they wouldn’t all rather be inside their barracks tent, gathered ‘round a hot stove than sat in the chill drizzle, listening to their CO get reamed a new one.

Their damp tableau was broken up by one Darcy Lewis, the strangest of all SSR’s administrative field staff, which was saying somethin’. She tromped past them in her silt-brown boots and slicker. Her thick glasses were speckled with rain, and she looked at least as miserable to be in the wet as they were. She stopped anyway.

“What’s kickin’, fellas?” She always had some wacky greeting; it was one of her many quirks. Another was never calling Cap by his name if she could avoid it. “Where’s Ol’ Glory?”

“The Colonel’s bustin’ his chops,” Jones offered before any of his compatriots could say something cruder. They never forgot they were talking to a woman, not out here, but they did sometimes forget that they’d been taught the manners to talk to a woman  _properly_.

“What’d he do this time?”

Sargent Barnes didn’t like the cheerful, sure way Lewis asked it. “Maybe it was one of us that did somethin’.”

She waved a hand. “Nah. Dude’s been jumping out of planes without a parachute for-” She visibly stopped herself from talking, and glanced around at the Commandos. “'Sides,” she continued, tugging her hand-knit cap down over her ears, “I heard Phillips shout ‘reckless’ at least twice earlier, when I walked past and stopped to listen.”

The Howlies started to laugh, but the Colonel’s steady lecture tone rose sharply. Captain Rogers’ voice- stubbornness in every syllable- was trying to placate.

Ms. Lewis smirked a bit, her lips contraband red. “I guess that’s my cue to go rescue ya boi.” She stumped around the tent corner before any of the men could ask what she meant.

A moment later, the men heard Phillips’ raspy, permanently-exasperated voice say, “Not now, Ms. Lewis.”

“Sorry, sir, but I was told this couldn’t wait.”

The Commandos huddled closer to the tent wall, careful not to touch it and give themselves away.

Rogers’ voice broke in, “Is that the intel on Hydra’s munitions supply chain?” He sounded, to the Howlies’ experienced ears, both eager for the lead, and the distraction.

“Uh, no. Sorry, Cap. I mean- Captain. That’s not in my wheelhouse.” Barnes and Dugan exchanged glances; what the hell did Hydra intel have to do with boats?

“What am I looking at?” Colonel Phillips prompted.

“Well, sir, those are the aerial photographs we took from Stark’s plane.”

“You mean the plane that nearly got shot down last week, despite Stark swearing up and down that his plane would be undetectable to the naked eye? The plane that had to set down two miles away from the landing strip, and I had to commandeer a tractor to tow it back to base? The plane that Stark promised would be up and operational within two days, and it has been a whole damn week?”

“Yes, sir, that plane.”

Morita covered his snicker, but only just. Lewis had perfected that innocent, too-dumb-to-live tone that all military personnel tried to emulate.

“These photographs appear to be of some sort of town, Lewis.”

“Yes, sir. They show the town of Svitz. It was overrun by Hydra five weeks ago, and razed to the ground.” The men tensed. An entire town destroyed by Hydra? It wasn’t the first, but they hadn’t heard anything about Svitz, and they’d made it their business to know everything Hydra was doing.

“And these photos are from last week?”

“Yes, sir,” Ms. Lewis said. Her voice hedged into the careful neutrality of SSR agents, “The town appears to be back.”

“Back?” Rogers’ incredulity was plain as the mustache on Dugan’s face. “From where?”

“Yes, back, Captain. We don’t know how- or from where, as you put it. Agent Carter is anxious to get a team out there and see if we can’t figure it out.”

“And I imagine,” the Colonel drawled, “Agent Carter wants to use the commando unit to babysit the boffins?”

“The boffins, sir?”

“The eggheads.”

“Oh. The science division. Yes, sir. As well as Agent Carter and myself.”

Steve’s voice choked out, “ _You?_ ”

“Yes, Captain Rogers, me,” Ms. Lewis’ voice was chilly. “See, this  _is_  my wheelhouse.”

She had roundly dismissed Rogers in two seconds flat. Barnes was impressed; she must have learned that skill from Carter.

She continued as though she’d never been interrupted, “Sir, if this anomaly is what I think it is, we only have a limited time to reach Svitz before it reverts. I’ve brought the documentation from Agent Carter. It’s all in order.”

Colonel Phillips’ tone couldn’t get much drier, “I’ll bet it is.”

Barnes could hear papers being shuffled, and the distinctive scratch of Phillips’ pen on army paper.

“Alright, Lewis,” the Colonel said, all business. “You and the commandos under Captain Rogers will rendezvous with Agent Carter and your science squad, and investigate Svitz. Captain, you’ve got one hour to deploy. I want to know what the hell is going on with that town.”

“Yes, sir,” Rogers barked. A moment later, his boots retreated.

“Y'know, Colonel,” Ms. Lewis said, her voice projecting clear to the men on the other side of the canvas, “if I were going to be deploying in less than an hour, I’d get off my patootie and jump into some dry clothes while I had the chance.”

She was about as subtle as a brick to the face, and the Howling Commandos didn’t need to be told twice.

As they began to trail towards their bunks, and the all-too brief pleasure of getting into fresh, dry clothes, Barnes’ ears caught one last long-suffering line from the good ol’ Colonel:

“Get the hell out of my office, Lewis.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The term “in (my) wheelhouse” to mean stuff you’re good at wasn’t used until the 50s. http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2013/09/09/in-ones-wheelhouse-from-boats-to-baseball-to/
> 
> Svitz is a “European” state (which I modified) from Welcome to Night Vale.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here, have a deleted scene from a fic that really didn’t need a flashback. It’s not perfect, but when is anything?

This whole mess had begun- as so many things in her life began- with Darcy sticking her finger into a pie she wasn’t meant to:

“All I’m saying, Son of Coul, is that you’re woefully understaffed in the mission support area, and that I am practically a computer genius, with time to kill.” Darcy had to skip every other step to keep up with Coulson’s stride down the corridor.

“Ms. Lewis, you are not cleared to work mission support. You have no training, and I’m not convinced that you have either the temperament or the necessary skills to-”

“What if I told you I’d already read over all the training material, and completed the written exams and the simulations?”

“I’d say,” Coulson had deadpanned, stepping into his office and permitting her to follow, “that you would have had to not only break through a Level 4 SHIELD firewall, but somehow dupe Agent Patel-Ruiz into letting you sit the exams.”

“The systems took some time, it’s true, but they aren’t that much of challenge when you’ve already messed with Stark’s crazy shit. And Patel-Ruiz is the one who suggested I study up in the first place.”

A barely-raised eyebrow screamed his skepticism.

“I’m  _bored_  here, dude. You guys gave Jane, like, five of her biggest fans, and all I need to do is make sure they sleep on a schedule, and that they don’t let her eat any Hot Pockets.” Jane was banned from Hot Pockets- there had been a memo. “I could be useful to you. I  _want_ to be useful.”

It must have been the dejected way she entreated him, because Coulson had settled himself at his desk, spent a minute typing, and said without inflection, “I see you scored top marks in the written exams.” Darcy had tried not to puff up, but probably failed. Agent Coulson continued, “Your examiner noted you were overly chatty during simulations, but otherwise excelled. Agent Patel-Ruiz recommended you for immediate assignment.”

Darcy hadn’t known that, and the grin that crossed her face was irrepressible.

“I see,” Coulson finished, “that the assessment was submitted to the system less than thirty minutes ago.”

She let the silence spin out a bit, trying to regain a little of the BAMF Agent feeling she’d had when Durga Patel-Ruiz had told her she’d passed with flying colors. After about two minutes of Coulson’s patented stilted silence, she caved.

“So, am I hired?”

“As you said, Ms. Lewis, we are still somewhat short-handed in some departments. We could use another analyst and remote handler for active missions.”

Darcy knew “active missions” was code for the ones where bullets were flying all over the place and you had to real-time talk agents through blueprints, bomb schematics, and the location of the bad guys via heat signature. She was marginally better at those than the kind where you had to relay details about a mark into the agent’s ear, translate on the fly, or help surveil using other countries’ spy satellites.

“Great! When do I start?” Darcy may have bounced on her feet a bit. Hey- an analyst doesn’t need to stand on their dignity and practice their thousand-yard stare, unlike field agents.

“There’s an assignment in two days. I’ll forward you the mission parameters and relevant files shortly. Now, please, Ms. Lewis, get out of my office.”

They must have been  _really_  short-staffed, because she’d been assigned to Captain America for her first run. The assignment had been routine: talking the Captain through a labyrinthine building he probably could have navigated himself, and then accessing the pertinent files from the system he stuck a device to, before detonating the whole caboodle.

Darcy half-thought Coulson had given her such a high-profile assignment in order to emphasize the sink-or-swim nature of her unofficial position. She’d just been grateful he hadn’t given her an assignment with the Black Widow, who either made mission support irrelevant or left no room for failure. An assignment like that would have been sink, swim, or get eaten by a shark.

When she relayed her thoughts on the matter to Cap as he made his retreat, he had laughed.

So: a successful mission for him, and a laugh for her. Win-win.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [Tumblr!](http://zephrbabe.tumblr.com/)


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